Friday, 11 April 2014

Based on a 1929 novel and
inspired by real events, 1932’s Scarface
was one of a series of pre-code gangster pictures which shocked and enthralled
its viewers. Opening with a written disclaimer, damming the government for
their lack of action regarding the threat that modern gangsters pose, the film
nonetheless glamorises the life of crime while shaking a stick in its vague
direction. It follows the ascent of young arrogant Italian immigrant Tony
Camonte (Paul Muni) as he rises through the Chicago underworld by bumping off bosses and
rivals who stand in his way and intimidating speakeasy proprietors into taking
his booze. Aided by his right hand man, the quiet coin flicking Guino Rinaldo
(George Raft), Tony reaches the heights of underworld overlord but finds that
being at the top is even more dangerous than the climb to the summit.

Arriving two years before the
Hays Office began imposing much stricter censorship on Hollywood; Scarface was able to get away with a lot more than many films which
followed it. Inside its ninety minutes you’ll find brutal murders, gunplay and
revealing costumes worn by the female characters, things which just wouldn’t be
permissible from 1934 onwards. Even still, the film troubled the censors and
the ending was changed to suit their tastes. Overall the movie contains a
‘crime doesn’t pay’ theme, something which you expect from the opening credits
disclaimer but it’s slow in coming. For the most part, the theme appears to be
‘crime gets you everything you want’ and it’s this which the censors must have
taken issue with. The glorification of the central character is also something
which the Hays Office was unhappy with. This is something which film makers and
censors would lock horns over for the next forty years.

Sunday, 24 March 2013

For a while now I’ve been trying to review every single
winner of the Best Picture Academy Award. It’s harder than you’d imagine to get
hold of some of these films but I managed to track down Grand Hotel in New York
recently. I chose it over 1927’s Wings
by price alone but now wish I’d opted for the latter. Grand Hotel won the Best Picture award at 5th Academy
Awards and is to this day the only film in history to be nominated for BestPicture and nothing else. The film is based on a play which is in turn based on
a novel and is set entirely within the grounds of Berlin’s
Grand Hotel at the end of the Weimar
Republic’s Roaring
Twenties. The film is full of glamour and charm but left me feeling rather
bored for almost its entire one hour and fifty minutes.

Grand Hotel became
the model for many films that followed and for its time was unique for blending
various characters and storylines into a coherent narrative. The film follows
some of the guests at the hotel over the course of a couple of nights following
a statement from permanent resident Dr. Otternschlag (Lewis Stone) that “People
come and go. Nothing ever happens”. Before Grand
Hotel films weren’t as bold as to mix so many stories and characters in
such abundance but the idea continues to this day with the likes of Babel
and Crash.